Overland with Kids

After Valencia, we crawled along the coast to San Pedro along the Costa Blanca. It is easy to see why so many people choose to live or have their second homes there. It is a very tranquil area with beautiful scenery, plenty of sun plus, beach after blissful beach of all shapes and sizes. We then headed to Aguila and spent the night in time for the fantastic firework festival. From here, the mountainous area we passed through changed from romantic to being really dramatic and fantastic. We found it difficult to decide which was the better - the scenery itself or the feat of engineering to build motorway/s, bridges, roads and tunnels through it.

Everything had being going well for us as we then made our way onto Malaga. That is, until the vehicle packed up again which seems to becoming it’s now regular habit and style. Our vehicle loves garages it seems! We found ourselves just about a mile from Castell de Ferro when it happened - a small, rugged coastal town on the Granada coast which fronts the Sierra Nevada - when something on the vehicle felt like it had fallen or come loose from the underside rear, just as we were going through a tunnel. We stopped to find the both the engine and gear stick shaking like mad and the vehicle making strange sounds. Being late Saturday afternoon, we decided to stay the weekend at Castell - the children and us had, had a long enough spell in the car at this stage and needed some chill out time on the beach, decent food and refreshment.

We stayed in our first hostal called Costa Sol for the weekend (nice and reasonably priced) and on Monday morning, Andrew ran around up and down the town while everyone else slept and managed to find a nice mechanic who told us the engine gasket had gone and it would take 5 days to fix! We were devastated to say the least!

Sulking finished and chins up a bit later in the day, we called our insurance company to see if we would be able to obtain a hire vehicle. The answer was yes so we grabbed our chance and headed for Granada to collect the same day. The real upside being that we got to travel unexpectedly through a great deal of the Sierra Nevada itself, enjoying and seeing yet more fantastic scenes as we passed through ( Jess and AJ slept most of the journey).

Vehicle collected, we decided to spend one more night in Castell. Next day, we decided to only take bare essentials (we are now down to two small bags between 4 of us) and travel light. So Tuesday, we packed up what little we needed and headed for Algeciras.

We loved the diversity of Algeciras in what little time\-\the one night - we had there (we have loved everywhere we have been). In this case especially as we could see the Rock of Gibraltar from our hotel room, enjoy the beach, see the port and almost smell Morocco very close by.

Wednesday (yesterday) found us finally in Morocco. We left hire car in Algeciras and arrived as foot passengers to the port town of Tangier by ferry. Our own vehicle is still in Castell de Ferro and our caravan remains in Millau, France. Not quite what we had expected as part of our trip plan.

We have only a few days (until this Sunday) to enjoy Morocco rather that the original 18+ days originally planned but we have enjoyed our adventures all the same. The word ’shakedown’ is certainly an apt one in our case.

We enjoyed the experience of Tangier but didn’t really find it suitable for a stay longer than one day. Amazing the cultural differences of Muslim versus western in this city but the two seem to meld together very well. Fully covered Muslim women in boiling heat who cannot undress on the beach. mixed with camels and us Westerners dying to get into our bikinis but can’t.

We decided today to head for Asilah by train, the first coastal town south of Tangier. Here it is teaming with Moroccans on vacation themselves and we think we have stumbled on a very pretty area which is very clean, interesting and Portugese in style with a huge stretch of beach. The nightlife here is bursting with people in the streets enjoying night markets, the ancient and throughly intact medina and the many restaurants and cafes. The children and us aremuch happier here. To top it all, we met a lady called Christina (from Suffolk) and her daughter who run a guest house here so we are now cooped up in Christina’s house.

As we don’t have much time left, we will spend the final days or our trip here before heading homeward bound, collecting our vehicles en-route. We are sorry not to be able to explore Morocco as planned but really glad we made it (albeit just about!).

It’s been great for Jessica especially to be able to see the differences between each country, food, religion, customs, phrases and the dialects spoken. AJ just wants the pool and beach (don’t we all!). All in all, a fab experience - just sad to see it ending.

What we miss:

AJ - Gizmo our cat

Jessica - a decent cup of milky sweet tea

Andrew - a garage in the back garden where he can sneak off to now and again

Anne - a reliable vehicle!!!!!!

Suppose the one other thing has been a washing machine for dirty clothes but we’ve managed well so far. The last couple of weeks have been more difficult and we’ve just resorted to buying new tshirts for the kids to mitigate this. No big deal really.

Over and out for now

A, A, J and A

xxxx

Diary (Blog)